Look Thou But Sweet
by JessieJay13
Summary: Some things are just easier to say in someone else's words.
Stiles just stood back and watched as Peter snarked at someone _else_ for a change. He had to admit, it was sort of entertaining to watch from an outsider's perspective, even when he knew how aggravating it was to be on the receiving end. This time the victim was Scott, who wasn't half as prepared to weather the onslaught of sarcasm and vitriol. Instead of snarking back the way Stiles would have, he just stood there and gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and occasionally growled while Peter talked circles around him.

Stiles considered coming to his rescue but honestly he was too tired for that shit. It was nearing 2am and school started in five and a half hours and they still had fucking pixies running through the streets like they were a supernatural playground. Supposedly, according to Peter at least, pixies were very fond of ribbons and could be lured out by them and then caught in a net woven of unicorn hair—which they happened to have in the Hale vault because, sure, why wouldn't they? Stiles and Scott had been chasing them around all night with those stupid ribbons, waving them in the air like idiots, and hadn't managed to catch a single one.

Cue Peter's supercilious bitching because, clearly, he could have done it better.

Scott was finally talking back, at least. Not that it was worth much. Scott had never been verbose or particularly eloquent; the talking had always been Stiles' job, but his throat hurt from yelling at the pixies all night and a steady throb had taken up residence between his eyes and it just wasn't worth the hassle.

Warmth at his shoulder alerted Stiles to Derek coming up beside him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his mouth set in an even tighter frown than usual as he watched the verbal sparring match. A muscle twitched in his jaw as Peter said something particularly cutting—probably something about Melissa, if the way Scott's eyes flashed red was anything to go by, but Stiles had stopped really listening a while ago so he wasn't sure. Someone might need to intervene soon, if anyone dared get between two snarly and sleep-deprived werewolves.

"Was he always like this?" Stiles asked, surprising himself. It was a vague question, but Derek didn't need any clarification.

"Sort of," he murmured back, keeping his voice down even though Peter and Scott clearly weren't paying them the slightest bit of attention. "He was always a bit of a dick, but he didn't used to be this bad. His wife mellowed him for a while."

Stiles was startled into actually looking at Derek, headache forgotten in the wake of this revelation. "Wait, his _wife_?"

Derek looked back at him, impressive eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah," he said. "Did you not know about that?"

Stiles shook his head.

Derek shrugged. "They were only married for a month or two, before…" He trailed off, unwilling to say it. "She was actually really nice, and she didn't put up with his bullshit."

Stiles shifted on his feet, thinking of flames and mountain ash barriers and years of insanity. He shook it off before he could feel _too_ much pity for Peter, you know, considering all the homicidal rage and the fucking up everyone's lives thing. Losing a loved one wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, after all. "I can't believe someone would want to marry _him_."

"He wasn't always this bad," Derek repeated.

"He was still a dick. What would a nice girl even see in him?"

"Things base and vile, holding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity," Derek intoned, half under his breath like maybe he was talking to himself now.

The words were familiar, but it took Stiles a minute to remember where he knew them from. When he did, he had to stare at Derek again because the man had just quoted _Shakespeare_. That was from a monologue in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , he was sure of it. They had had a Shakespeare section in their freshman english class, reading through all the standards and ignoring the dick jokes in favor of espousing the elegance of the remaining forty-three percent of the verse.

Scott had complained vehemently for the whole month, but Stiles had actually quite liked those lessons. For all that his ADHD had been really had that year and it had been hard for him to focus in class, he'd gone into hyper-drive a few times at home and plowed through four plays in a night, or else become so focused on one play or one scene that he'd immersed himself in it for hours on end. He'd written a fair few completely unsolicited essays on the topic and later sold them on the internet to college students too lazy to write their own.

Now he spent another minute digging back through his mental filing cabinet of completely irrelevant information to dig up this particular passage.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind," he finally said. "And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

Derek raised an eyebrow at him. Stiles thought he might actually be impressed. He finally turned his attention away from the bickering, if nothing else, to face Stiles more fully.

"Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste..." he said, his lips quirking up into something caught between a smirk and a true smile. He let his tone ride up at the end, an invitation for Stiles to match him quote for quote.

"Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste," Stiles shot back. He crossed his arms over his chest as Derek's smile widened, now determined to rise to the challenge. "And therefore is Love said to be a child…"

"Because in choice he is so oft beguiled." The words tripped off Derek's tongue without a second of hesitation, as if he said them all the time, as if he had practiced them.

Stiles pressed on. "As waggish boys in game themselves forswear..."

"So the boy Love is perjured everywhere."

That was where the monologue took a thematic turn and Stiles had to flail around in his memory to catch the next thread, but he pulled it out before his hesitation became too obvious. "For ere Demetrius looked on—"

"If you two are quite finished flirting, there is work to be done."

Peter's irritated interruption took Stiles completely by surprise. He hadn't even noticed that Peter and Scott had stopped arguing—without bloodshed, he was relieved to see. He also hadn't noticed how close together he and Derek had been standing.

He stepped back immediately, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. A denial tried to make its way out of his mouth, but for all that he had just had a million words on the tip of his tongue they seemed to have abandoned him now. All he could remember was the rest of Helena's monologue, lamenting her beloved Demetrius' fickle affections.

At least Derek didn't seem any better off. His mouth was open but for once there was no surly retort coming out. Scott, for his part, was looking between the two of them with a vaguely horrified expression on his face that Stiles would have found funny if he weren't so flustered.

Peter took the awkward silence as permission to keep talking—as if he ever needed permission to do _that_. "Now that you two have decided to rejoin the real world with all its many foibles," he drawled, "I will leave this mess in your oh-so-capable hands." He shot one more dark look at Scott, who glared back with all the force he could muster, and swept from the room with his usual melodramatic swagger.

The tense silence he left in his wake was broken by Derek muttering, " _[Exit left, pursued by bear,]_ " and Stiles dissolved into a good old-fashioned, uncontrollable, 2am giggle fit while Scott looked on in utter confusion.

—

It took them three more days to get the pixie situation under control. And really, Stiles couldn't even bring himself to complain too much about the whole thing because it was more of a nuisance than a real crisis, and he could not turn his nose up at a not-crisis in his life. There had been no deaths and barely any injuries, just five days of sleeplessness and stress before they verified that, no, this was not the kind of pixie that ate children and, yes, their initial plan would actually work if they could get close enough to get the pixies' attention.

So here Stiles was, at the end of all the mayhem, finally able to collapse into his much-missed bed and fucking _sleep_. Thank god for the weekend, and bless the pixies for succumbing late on a friday evening. Stiles had his face smushed into his pillow and was well on his way to falling asleep fully clothed with his bedside lamp still on when he heard the by now familiar sound of light footsteps on the roof outside his window. Immediately struck by what a golden opportunity this was, he flailed himself into a more upright position just as Derek pushed open his bedroom window.

" _But soft! What light through yonder window breaks!_ " Stiles spouted off, reaching out a hand dramatically. He couldn't believe he had never thought to make this joke before, considering exactly how many times Derek had made an entrance like this, but to be fair he had never thought to put Derek Hale and Shakespearean literature in the same mental space before.

Now Derek paused, one foot in the room and one still on the roof, and stared at Stiles for a moment. Then, to Stiles' surprise, he ducked his head and chuckled. He came through the window fully and sat down on the sill, looking up at Stiles with a grin still on his face.

"You know, if you're casting us as Romeo and Juliet," he said, "then I'm pretty sure that's _my_ line."

"Well, you missed your cue," Stiles said, "and someone had to say it eventually!"

Derek rolled his eyes. "How remiss of me," he said. "Would you like me to make up for it now?"

Stiles mouthed at him in confusion. "Uh, what…?"

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" Derek said, mimicking Stiles' earlier gesture with a teasing quirk of an eyebrow.

But he didn't stop there.

"It is the east and Juliet is the sun." He nodded at Stiles, naming Stiles as his Juliet in this rendition, and Stiles' heart kicked in his chest as he realized exactly what he had opened himself up to.

"Arise, fair sun," Derek said, standing up from his windowsill seat. He gestured for Stiles to stand too and he did, too stunned by this turn of events to think of disobeying. "And kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she."

Derek was getting closer now, moving forward with slow, measured steps as he spoke. "Be not her maid," he said, "since she is envious; her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!"

He gestured sharply to the side, as if he were truly tossing aside the moonlight that seeped through the open window behind him. That spectral light warred with the warm glow of the bedside lamp and painted his face with shadows. His eyes flashed occasionally, reflecting the light as any nocturnal predator's would, but for once he didn't look predatory. Instead there was a tenderness to him now as he said, "It is my lady, O, it is my love! O that she knew she were!"

He took another half-step forward and raised a hand toward Stiles, a smile pulling at his lips. "She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?" he said, amusement coloring his tone. Stiles had to huff a laugh at that, recognizing the irony of him _not_ speaking, and Derek's smile grew.

"Her eye discourses," he said. "I will answer it."

Of course he will, Stiles thought. He was on a roll now, an unstoppable force, full of unusual charm and grace. His voice was smooth and soothing, almost hypnotic, not a hitch to be found as he rattled off the complicated verse. He had to have practiced this, he _had_ to. Stiles thought maybe he should comment on that, should make some quip or joke, but he was caught in the thrall of it, holding his breath for every word.

"I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks," Derek said, a hand on his chest in mock-humility. "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes—" He held out that hand, stopping just short of Stiles' face, as if he couldn't bring himself to close the distance and touch him. "—to twinkle in their spheres till they return."

As if Stiles' eyes were anything like stars. Now _Derek_ 's eyes, _those_ were worth poetry like this. Up this close, with barely a foot of space between them, Stiles could see every fleck, every line of color, a supernova of blue and green and gold, all of it focused unwaveringly on him, pinning him down with an intensity that made him a bit lightheaded. And still Derek talked on, quieter now that they were so close, soft and warm.

"What if her eyes were there, they in her head?" he asked, musing, his hand still lingering in the air near Stiles' temple, near enough for him to feel the heat of it. "The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would _sing_ and think it were not night."

He was almost whispering now, close enough that they were sharing air between them. Even if his mattress hadn't been pressing against the backs of his knees, Stiles didn't think he could have stepped back. His hands might have been shaking but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Derek's to check.

As if he had read his mind, Derek reached down and took Stiles' hand in his, the sudden contact startling. He drew it up slowly, tracing his fingers from the sensitive inside of Stiles' wrist down over his palm and his fingers, pulling them open. Then he lead Stiles' hand up to press against Stiles' own cheek, his own broader hand pressed over top of it.

"See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!" he said. "O, that I were a glove upon that hand—" He twined his fingers through Stiles' and pulled their joined hands away, down to press between their chests. "—that I might touch that cheek."

He brought his other hand up and brushed his knuckles along the heated ridge of Stiles' cheekbone, down the line of his jaw. Stiles shuddered all the way down to his toes, flushed and dizzy. His heart was pounding in his chest and there was no way that Derek couldn't hear it, couldn't _smell_ the arousal on him. He was far, _far_ past pretending that this wasn't...wasn't _something_ , but still he floundered for something to say, some way to regain at least a tiny bit of his equilibrium.

"I think, uh…" He had to stop and clear his throat, swallow hard. "I think this is the most I've ever heard you say at one time."

Somehow it didn't break the moment. Derek didn't let go of Stiles' hand, didn't step away. His fingers splayed across the side of Stiles' neck, resting comfortably where it met his shoulder as if it belonged there. His thumb swept back and forth across the soft skin. Derek finally looked away from Stiles' face to watch the motion instead.

"I'm not good with words on my own," Derek said. "I always manage to say the wrong thing when left to my own devices."

"I don't know about that."

Derek laughed softly and shook his head. "You know it's true. I'm harsh and impatient, even when I try not to be. I say things that I don't mean. Some days it seems like everything I say comes out wrong."

Stiles had never heard him sound so _sad_. He had seen him angry, seen him grieving, but this was quieter, more personal. Stiles turned his hand where it was still clasped in Derek's, twining their fingers together properly and giving them a reassuring squeeze. Derek stared down at them for the space of a few heartbeats, then looked up to meet his eyes again.

"There are...certain things," he said, his tone almost halting after the easy lilt of the verse, "that are just easier to say in someone else's words."

Stiles' breath caught in his throat. He licked his lips, swallowed through the sudden tightness. "And what are you trying to say?"

Derek opened his mouth to speak. Then after a long moment, he closed it again. He huffed out something that might have been a self-deprecatory laugh and looked away.

If it were anyone else, Stiles might have worried about such a lengthy silence. But Derek's hand was still tight in his, Derek's chest still brushing against his knuckles with every breath, Derek's thumb still resting lightly on his pulse point. There, in the dim quiet of his bedroom, Stiles was content to wait.

It seemed like a very long while before Derek spoke, but there was a timeless quality to it, like they had been encased in amber and could simply stay there, suspended in perpetual motion even as neither moved a muscle.

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep." Derek's whisper barely carried to Stiles' ears, but the words rang like the toll of a bell anyway. "The more I give to thee, the more I have. For both are infinite."

If there was any way to respond to that, Stiles couldn't think of it. Instead he reached up to Derek's head toward him, waiting until Derek gathered the courage to look him in the eye. He didn't know what Derek saw in that moment, but it was enough for the tension to drain out of his shoulders and a sigh of relief to fall from his lips. When those lips began to tug up into a smile, Stiles felt it necessary to intervene, stopping the smile in its tracks with a kiss.

In the grand scheme of things, Stiles wasn't sure if it was truly a legendary, for-the-ages kiss or if it was just on the up-side of average—honestly, he didn't have a whole lot of kisses to compare it to—but on a more personal scale, he couldn't imagine how it could possible be any better. Derek's lips were soft and warm, the scruff of his stubble sent more shivers chasing each other down his spine, and strong fingers slid to cup the back of his neck in a way that felt more reassuring than restraining. Everything about it was so good, Stiles sort of forgot that breathing was a thing that needed to happen.

He pulled back gasping, breathless and giddy, and laughed against Derek's cheek. Once he had his head back on straight, he said, "You know, that was supposed to be my line, right?"

"You missed your cue," Derek said. "Someone had to say it."

Stiles snorted in Derek's shoulder. He disentangled his fingers from Derek's and slid both arms around his waist instead, pressing in as close as he could get. Derek wrapped his arms around Stiles shoulders, apparently content to stand there as long as possible. They might have stayed there all night, just drinking in each other's presence, if not for the slam of a car door in the driveway.

Derek sighed, loosening his grip and preparing to leave, but Stiles held on. "It's your dad," he said.

"I know," Stiles said. "Don't worry, he doesn't come in without knocking anymore. He has learned that lesson."

Even though he couldn't see it from where his face was pressed into Derek's shoulder, Stiles knew for a fact that Derek was rolling his eyes. He smiled. He stayed right where he was even when his father knocked on his door.

"Stiles?" he said in something of a stage whisper, obviously not wanting to wake him up if he'd just fallen asleep with the light on as he'd been planning to do. "You awake in there?"

"Anon, good nurse!" Stiles said, quietly enough that only Derek heard it. Derek just managed to stop himself from laughing out loud by biting his hand.

"What was that?"

"I'm fine, dad!" Stiles called at a more reasonable volume. "I'm just heading to bed. You should too."

"Okay, kid," his dad said agreeably. "Sleep tight."

The two of them stayed as they were for several more minutes, listening to the sound of the sheriff puttering through his nighttime routine. Eventually Derek pulled back, brushing his knuckles down Stiles' cheek again.

"You really should get some sleep," he whispered. "It's been a long week for you."

"Yeah, I guess. And hey, I can sleep in tomorrow!"

"You do that," Derek said, amused. Then he bit his lip, the slightest bit unsure. "Then, uh, give me a call? When you wake up?"

"Yeah, of course," Stiles said. "We'll go out, do something. You know, just us."

The smile Derek gave him was smile and sweet.

There was a moment of awkwardness when they finally pulled apart entirely, both of them fidgety and reluctant to leave the moment. In the end, it was Stiles who broke it by blowing out a heavy breath and saying with an exaggerated shrug, "Part is such sweet sorrow."

Derek rolled his eyes again, but he was still smiling that same smile. "That I shall say good night til it be morrow," he said dutifully. One more quick kiss and then he was out the window and gone.

Stiles stared after him for another minute, then flopped back onto his bed. He was out within minutes, still fully clothed and with bedside lamp still on, and slept better than he had in months.


End file.
